The Pittsburgh Penguins dropped game one of the Eastern Conference Final to the Tampa Bay Lightning last night, 3-1. What did we learn from the first matchup of the series?
Patric Hornqvist scored the lone goal for the Pittsburgh Penguins in game one, managing to get one past Andrei Vasilevskiy on the powerplay. Meanwhile, Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat, and Jonathan Drouin all picked up goals for the Tampa Bay Lightning to lead them to the win.
The game was also marred by several bad injuries on each side. Just minutes into the game, Ryan Callahan dangerously hit Kris Letang from behind into the boards. Later, Ben Bishop went down with what appeared to be a knee or groin injury after making an awkward save and had to be stretchered off the ice; Chris Kunitz hit Tyler Johnson knee-to-knee and the Tampa forward had to be helped off the ice.
And that was just the first period!
Letang and Johnson would both return to the game, but that was surprising. Late in the third period, Brian Dumoulin was boarded hard by Palat and dropped. There have been no updates yet about Dumoulin, but there is nothing “structurally wrong” with Bishop’s leg.
Dumoulin had been promoted to the first defensive pairing with Letang, and the Bolts did a swell job of knocking out the Pens’ best d-men. Both Callahan and Palat got penalties during the game – Callahan’s a five minute major – but neither are facing further repercussions.
Game one was fast, end-to-end, and brutal. The Penguins didn’t look too hot, realistically, but the Bolts did a good job of shutting them down on top of their own mistakes. So what lessons can we take from the series opener?
More than anything, I think we’ve established that this is going to be a hard-hitting matchup. The Pens and Bolts aren’t even really rivals, especially compared to Pittsburgh’s opponents from the first two rounds, but we’ve already seen more carnage in one game than in those series.
The Pens pretty much neutralized guys like Tom Wilson, but they have a bigger challenge this round. Specifically, a 6’7″ challenge: Brian Boyle. Boyle was really effective last night both in throwing big hits and irritating the Pens while also doing his job on the penalty kill and offensive rushes.
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Hornqvist and Ian Cole have been valiant in their efforts to step up and hold other players accountable; however, neither are real fighters (which is a benefit, most of the time). It’s not that the Pens are getting beat up on without giving it back, but frankly, size is against them. A lot of the Bolts are huge.
Intentionally trying to hurt other players is bad. No exceptions. However… if the refs and Department of Player Safety are just going to let stuff fly, and the Bolts are going to use that to their advantage, then the Pens will have to as well.
The Penguins also need to get a little less showy with their moves. A lot of their errors last night came from extended passing sequences or trying to get too fancy with stickwork. Tampa is really good at breaking up plays – especially again, because so many of their players are so big that their wingspan can easily tie up opponents.
Admittedly, we did shoot ourselves in the foot with some of that passing too. It’s absolutely a cliche, but putting pucks on net is never a bad thing. Obviously if a player thinks he can wait a split second to get a more advantageous position or better shooting lane, he should and will; on the other hand, just passing to others to be “selfless” or something is useless.
You know in “Jurassic Park,” right at the beginning, when the raptor is attacking the worker from its cage and the game hunter is yelling “SHOOT HER, SHOOT HER”? That’s me when the Penguins are on the powerplay, mostly.
Without Bishop, both these teams are in a unique place with their goalies – both are fairly unexperienced 21 year olds with talent beyond their years. The Caps figured out how to solve Murray; we just need to figure out the same for Vasilevskiy.
I will go to my grave advocating for Justin Schultz to get back in the lineup. The thing I like most about him is that he does actually shoot the puck, and I think he fits great with Ian Cole. I never thought I’d say this, but let’s give Olli Maatta a break and put Schultzy in for a game.
Olli’s been having a rough go of it; I know the coaching staff believes in him and I do too. It’s just not working right now, and we need it to. One lineup change won’t throw things off too much.
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It’s not like this series was ever going to be a sweep. It’s the Eastern Conference Final, and the Bolts are hungry to make it back to the Cup final. These are two very good teams. The Penguins have had a chance to feel their opponent out now and it can only get better from here.